thibaultron

What is that amazing tool? It seems to be an attachment for a soldering iron? If so what is it called and where can I get one?

Thank you, Georges.  I am a great fan of ANCRE and your group, so I am sure that you are correct.  I'm just surprised that I had never seen this before.  
Entirely my own fault - I have had a copy of "The 74 Gun Ship" since soon after it was published, and there it is - clearly shown in Fig.197 - but I had never noticed its significance. 

Hello,
 
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and probably before, in France, the cannons were all rigged in this way. The breeching passes through the gun carriage.
The through holes are worked accordingly by rounding the edges.
 
GD

Balance, good handhold, also a good place to lash rigging to while moving or securing the gun and Uncle Carly tied his teeth to them while sleeping, being a good fiddle player, allowances were made for him.
jud 

I presume the cascabel was there as the same/similar cannons were used by the army and fortifications?  Then again... 

I too am surprised about the breaching rope.   What is the purpose of the cascabel if not to secure the breaching rope.  I do not think that it can add to the strength of the barrel.  Does anyone know?

Very common on the French ships.  I'm not sure why but that seems to be the way they did it.

I have never before seen a breeching rope that goes through the gun carriage rather than round the cascabel.  How common was this?  The wear rate must have been terrific.

Extraordinary, what a wonderful picture. Thanks a lot G. Delacroix

You have to rig your cannons as in this photo to the reserve of only one tackle in the back.
 
The dimensions of the elements are as follows (guns of 6 / guns of 8), real dimensions to scale for your model
- single and double block: 175mm/200 mm
- rope of tackle: diameter: 17mm/20 mm
- breeching: diameter : 32mm/47 mm
 

 
GD

My build of Le Cerf is nearing the phase when I have to start rigging the ship's cannons. There are 16 pcs 6 pounders and 2 pcs 8 pounders on the deck, but unfortunately the plans lack completely their rigging. Because of this I wonder if any of you might give me a link or tutorial to show how these are rigged in the correct way.

Well I am getting good practice with the alcohol. When I glued the bulwark planks on the first time I left some overhang at the bow. Somewhere along the way I must have cut off the overage. Then I removed the planks - the first time - then glued them back correctly. I finished the pintles and gudgeons for the stern and rudder and was dry fitting those. It became obvious that with the rudder in place there was not much room for the platform in between the bulwark planks. The bulwarks did not extend past the stern far enough. So out comes the ole 90% again. Tear the bulwarks off again. Wasn't so lucky this time, I did get one side off intact but the other side got shredded in a few places. Since there are no replacements I guess I'll have to use some boxwood strips this time. But first I'll have to darken them up to match the walnut.
 
Definitely working on the tug tonight!

Mike, I use a small 50¢ brush, just dip in and put a few drops where needed, or you can 'paint' a larger area.

Agreed. Mine is 90% also. Not 90 Proof
 
Like most things you just have to be careful where it gets applied. I have it in one of those lab squeeze bottles. I thought I could pinpoint exactly where I wanted it to go. Not so. It ran everywhere. Hope I didn't unglue something else

Are your difficulties related to laying out  or marking the ports, or from cutting them out?  (or both?).  
 
I have found over the years that accurate marking is the key to good results and the best way to mark is with a knife, not a pencil.   With a line scribed by a knife, you can carve, file, sand right to the line, and you'll end up with straight edges and sharp corners.  The smaller the scale, the more critical this becomes.  

Ron,
 
Thank you for posting the video.  I haven't use an airbrush at all up to now but I do have two.  At some point I will give it a try.  I wish that I had seen this video before I got the air brushes because I had no idea what I have and why they would work or not.  Now I do have the guidance that I need, and chances are the airbrushes that I have might not be the right fit.  Anyway, this video is a must for anyone who is even thinking about using an air brush.
 
 

No progress to report...unfortunately, work has kept me away from the table for weeks now with no end in sight.  
THX
J
 

I've had a bottle of 90% isopropyl on the work bench for a while now.  It's a handy arrow to have in your quiver.  If the joint doesn't come apart, just add more alc.  It doesn't raise the grain and hardly mars the wood if you're careful.  Also handy for removing glue overrun without compromising the joint.

If my knee bent in the opposite direction I'd be kicking my butt right now. Working the deck, I began construction on the stern platform. There is a 2nd bulwark plank that is glued on over the 1st. These extend out from the stern and form the support for the platform. Got them in place - glued well - and moved on to the grate that fits in the middle of the platform. It's not a square grate! The aft end is convex, the sides are concave. To get those shapes I thought I might sand them. Grates do not like this. Made a mess of the first one. Fortunately this is one thing Amati supplied extras for.
 
Adding insult to injury - I began dry fitting the parts only to realize that I had extended the bulwark planks off the bow instead of the stern. And - yup you guessed it - there aren't any more. I did have the foresight (or just plain dumb luck) to use PVA on these planks so I soaked them in alcohol which did loosen up the glue. Never done that before, but I read it here somewhere. I was able to salvage the 2 planks and reverse them.
 
Maybe I need to work on the tug for a little while

Don't use brushes! Here is a talk by the owner of Badger Airbrush. Great info!
 
 

Part 6 – Shipway and Mounting


 
It’s been a little while since the last post – due to some challenges.


 
In the last couple of posts I’ve shown the model shipway for Kathryn in use, but haven’t described it in any detail.


 
The shipway is constructed using a 12” x 48” x ½” melamine shelf, routed to take the Veritas T-Slot Tracks from Lee valley.  These tracks allow the use of the ½ thick shelving – other tracks would require a thicker board.  This is the same arrangement as used on the Dunbrody build, but is based on a longer shelf since Kathryn will be longer than the Dunbrody sectional model.


 

 

The devices at each end of the shipway are the jigs used for holding the centerline, and are the same as used in the Dunbrody build.  The other fixture in the center of the shipway is a jig used for setting the frames – it’s the same jig as was used for Dunbrody, but will be used in a different manner.  Its use will be described in a future post when frame installation is covered.


 
Kathryn is mounted using bolts that run through two spacers that were cut to hold the model at the proper angle.  The initial intent was to thread the shoe/keel/keelson combination to hold the mounting bolts to the hull.  However, when I started mounting the frames it became apparent that the model would need to be frequently removed from the shipway during the framing process.  Obviously the threaded holes in the wood components would probably not stand up to frequent jostling, so a different approach was needed.


 
Since there was no longer any way to embed a nut in the keelson, as had been done on Dunbrody, I needed to find a way to embed a threaded sleeve through the very narrow keel (8”, or ¼” at scale).  I decided to use an 8-32 pronged t-nut as shown in the following photo.


 


 
 
The entire flange needed to be ground off, so a method of holding the nut during grinding was needed.  The nut was screwed onto 8-32 threaded rod, which was held in a large pin-vise.  Two hex nuts were used to keep the t-nut from turning during grinding.


 

 

The flange of the t-nut was then ground away using a bench grinder.


 

 

The following photos show a threaded sleeve after grinding was completed, and both sleeves screwed onto the mounting rods ready for installation.


 

 


 
A #7 drill was the largest drill that could be comfortably used to enlarge the holes in the keel, so the sleeve needed to be further ground to fit into the hole.  The sleeves were then epoxied into the keel.  The mounting bolts can now be removed without any risk to the screw thread within the keel/keelson.


 
With the mounting work now completed framing can begin and will be the subject of the next post.


 
Thanks everyone for following and for the continued encouragement.

Another one I should have remembered, anyone who prefers PVA should try this. First, it's high quality PVA designed to hold together guitars that live under pretty significant stresses for decades. But that's not the super spiffy part, this also has an invisible dye that becomes visible under black/UV lighting. Guitar makers can't afford a single spot of glue anywhere, and someone at some point had this great idea and it's in common use by luthiers now. All you need is a UV light handy, and you'll never have a stained finish ruined by a spot of glue you couldn't see.
 
I've never tested, but it's supposed to be fully repairable with joints separating at 190 degrees.
 
LMI PVA Instrument Glue

John....I agree with the direction you're taking.....when grappling with two paintings of the same vessel with dissimilar details...it helps when dates of pertinent events can help narrow down the direction and look you are wanting to go and are looking for.  It has to be noted that vessels changed appearance when captained by different captains.  His preferences and possibly damage corrections can alter a vessels appearance.   One would hardly know that the Cutty Sark from her original appearance to that of when the Portuguese owned her and renamed her the Farriera and changed her rig due to an accident was the same ship.
 
Follow your gut.  Who's to argue.
Good luck and following seas.
 
Rob  

Elijah - one thing I would suggest to anyone that is serious about model building. Have extra materials on hand. For us that means wood, brass, rope to name just a few.

Hey Mike, it's nice to see you with another build! It's the worst when materials run low. It's good to see you have other options!